US President Donald Trump’s administration is requesting an $81.1 billion “black budget” to finance secret US intelligence operations, according to recent announcements made by the Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
On Tuesday, the ODNI said its “aggregate amount of appropriations requested for the FY 2019 National Intelligence Program (NIP) is $59.9 billion, which includes funding requested to support Overseas Contingency Operations.”
The Pentagon announced a sister budget request for the military intelligence program (MIP) on Tuesday as well. The Defense Department is asking Congress for $21.2 billion. The combined budgets add up to $81.1 billion.
The $81 billion request is about 3 percent greater than fiscal year 2018’s budget of $78 billion and the largest total request for MIP and NIP since 2007, when the government began disclosing this information, the Washington Times noted.
The office of Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats added that “beyond the disclosure of the NIP top-line figure, there will be no other disclosures of currently classified NIP budget information because such disclosures could harm national security.” Information about what agencies or specific programs will be the recipients of the funds also “will not be disclosed,” the agency said.
The Pentagon said the top-line $21.2 billion request “does not jeopardized any classified activities within the MIP.”
Congress has final authority to appropriate the funds at the conclusion of fiscal year 2018, which comes at the end of September.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
